Burnt Feathers
by sora kazega
Summary: Katniss Everdeen, the Girl on Fire, knows fire better than anyone. She looks back on how the fire that set Panem ablaze grew. She didn't escape it and the smell of burnt feather hangs in the air.


**AN:**I don't own the Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins does.

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Burnt Feathers

Fire, it was something that had mesmerized man for eons and always would. The Hunger games, she really found fitting that the fire started there because fire was always so hungry. It consumed the games and went on to consume the country and capitol. It consumed the people around her and eventually the fire that she had been the original spark of swallowed her, too.

Fire at the beginning needs to be coaxed because it doesn't like to be controlled. Alcohol is very good at coaxing, she found; Haymitch always did understand her the best. Fire however can't run on alcohol alone because alcohols true purpose is to make fire rise at specific moments. In order for fire to keep burning it needs kindling and Peeta Mellark more than did that. He was the base that made that fire blaze steadily, what made it seem so unbeatable. Bread burns though and Peeta Mellark turned charcoal black. A fitting fate for a boy from district 12 and even more fitting is that the fire originated from the coal miners.

Fire is angry, sure, and she had that but fire is so much more. Fire has mystique, grace, and softness; it's captivating and heart warming. She was as far as possible from all of that. As Haymitch had so eloquently put it she had "about as much charm as a dead slug." What Peeta ever saw in her she'd never know and again Haymitch had spoken true: " You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him." Alcohol is clear, after all.

She had none of that but Cinna, lovely Cinna with his golden rimmed eyes and cloth, made sure she had all that and more. Cloth burns just as good as coal, but sadly it's not as durable. Cinna died before her eyes but all it served to do was make her burn brighter.

Not the Capitol's best move.

Oh yes, how the leader of that grand metropolis blundered. The Capitol counted on it that Poseidon's heir, who they thought they had in their pocket, would douse the fire they had let get out of control. Instead Finnick Odair protected that very fire they hoped he would extinguish in that second arena where water was abundant. They thought that they controlled the victors of District 3, too. They could have not been more wrong. Electricity and fire are fast friends and thus is only helped the fire increase in height. Their biggest mistake though was killing all and everyone that Johanna Mason had cared about; someone who has nothing to lose and everything to gain and no reason to stop is someone to fear. Furthermore, wood_ is_ a rather flammable substance.

The Second Quarter Quell didn't end well: not for her, her home or the Capitol. District 12 was destroyed, her home eradicated by the fire of revolution that she had started. So many had died in the Quell and all for her. Her alone. The guilt of those two things alone was crushing but it wasn't the worst. You'd expect, at least, that having been named after a plant that grew beneath the ground she'd feel somewhat comfortable there, because that was where district 13 was situated, but the death of her father had given here mild case of claustrophobia. It made her edgy but wasn't the worst either, oh no! The worst was that the Capitol had captured Peeta and it was all her fault! _All. Her. Fault._ With Peeta gone, with her kindling and rock to sanity gone, as well as everything else she lost it. Completely.

Nuclear district 13 did nothing to contain the flame of insanity that started to consume her; in fact it made all the more uncontrollable and the only thing they did was keep her alive. She resented them for that because what was there left to live for? So she screamed, cried and hated. Hated the capitol, district 13 but most all she hated herself. At some point though her kindling returned and hope sparked within her but it was put out quickly. The kindling was very wet and didn't burn easily anymore, even tried to douse her flame of life. Yes, the Peeta she knew and had slowly but surely come to care so much about was gone.

Still, by now the fire had spread and even if the original flame didn't burn as bright it wouldn't matter because the world was already burning for all its worth.

One after one the capitol's defenses were brought down and it, too, burned. No, that wasn't true: it exploded. The grand city was blown to smithereens, along with Primrose Everdeen. That was the last straw for her and the flame that was Katniss Everdeen burned brighter than ever before. The Snow melted until the air was purged of the smell of roses and blood. The Coin, which made of such tough metal, bent and melted into a pool of blood and an empty husk of a body. Panem had become ashes and out of these ashes of a bloody nation arose a republic, the one that Plutarch had talked about. Paylor took control and turned it into a majestic phoenix that rose from those ashes. She, however, didn't come back more glorious than before; she didn't come back at all. She was dust and ashes, a burned tuber.

She all saw that as she stared into the ever-changing flames of her hearth and couldn't help but be mesmerized. It was so _terribly _beautiful. This is what she had been, once upon a time: flickering and bright. Unforgettable. She was forgotten now though, a mere memory to the people of the new republic because she sat here in a large empty house in Victors Village. One thing many people didn't know, not truly, was that fire was never the same. It flickered this way and that way, leaving afterimages everywhere. Fire changed shape and color. Fire, she knew now, it was all one grand, beautiful illusion.

Real or not real?

Somewhere in a silent house in Victor Village a girl with a braid shakes herself awake in front of a hearth. She must have dosed off, she thinks. She was sure she dreamed of something, but of what she's not sure. She crinkles her nose. It smells like burnt feathers and it makes her stomach churn. She doesn't feel good so the dream mustn't have been and the smell sure couldn't have helped, but she pushes it away because most her dreams lately haven't been; participating in the recently passed 74th hunger games is responsible for that. As she goes through the day, not wanting anybody to see how bad she is today, she keeps hearing a wailing in the back of her mind, it is the wailing of a burning and dying mockingjay.

Fin

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A short little piece on fire, which I had to do after reading the Hunger Games again. It's meant to show how she shines and burns through the help of others and the circumstances she gets thrown into as well as how the fate of Panem is balanced on a knife. I didn't know whether to add that last paragraph and after grappling a bit with myself I decided to put it there because the piece is already so short. Anyway, tell me what you think!

S.K.


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